


you too?

by chonkytheslur



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Getting Together, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, but not the kind that results in drama they're just stupid, past March/Ransom - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27989226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chonkytheslur/pseuds/chonkytheslur
Summary: The four of them hanging out as a group feels entirely natural; the way they’re pairing off does not.Or: the one where April and Holster bond over being in love with their best friends.
Relationships: Adam "Holster" Birkholtz/Justin "Ransom" Oluransi, April (Check Please!) & Adam "Holster" Birkholtz, April/March (Check Please!)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 57
Collections: the renaissance fic collection





	1. you too?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elizaeverafter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizaeverafter/gifts).



> original post can be found [here](https://biginnyweasley.tumblr.com/post/637100207693283328/bi-ginny-weasley-april-and-holster-become-friends), with some minor edits!

April and Holster become friends because their friends are dating. The first time they’re invited on a double date, they only do it as a favor. They’re sitting there the whole night feeling like shit because although all four of them are bros, Ransom and March are holding hands right across the table.

March and April walk back from the double date together, neither of them really registering that no one is ending the night with their actual date. The walk home is illuminated by the streetlights and the stars, and when April shivers a little, March puts an arm around her shoulder and squeezes. “You’re so southern,” she teases. “It’s literally like, forty degrees.” April _aches_.

That same night, Ransom crawls into Holster’s bed out of fear of the ghosts _("Not that they exist! Ghosts aren’t real”)._ It’s 3 am, he’s exhausted and cranky, but he wraps an arm around Ransom and holds him until he falls asleep. He wakes up with his best bro’s cheek resting on his chest, but his mind is filled with thoughts of _Ransom and March, Ransom and March, Ransom and March._

For some reason, likely masochism, the double dates continue. They walk in holding hands with their dates, but they walk back out with their bros.

At some point during this process, Holster and April find themselves alone at a kegster.

“Are we actually dating?” April says, because she’s drunk. She briefly wonders if she sounds rude, but Holster just laughs in that loud booming way of his and leans against the wall.

“Do you want to be?”

She bites her lip, eyes moving involuntarily to where March and Ransom are making out across the room. Something in Holster’s face shifts, and he leans a little closer, seemingly more at ease. “You too?” he says, as quietly as quiet gets for Holster.

And then she’s laughing, bordering on hysterical, because she’s had like three cups of tub juice and a few shots, and she’s at a college party with a cute boy where she could easily be hooking up and dancing and making bad decisions but instead she’s _so close_ to crying over her best friend who may never love her back. “We’re losers,” she says, and he snorts drunkenly; it feels like a new beginning.

Some days, she’ll come over to the Haus to hang out with Holster. They sit out on the reading room, sometimes sharing a joint, and the quietness of the roof opens up a space for them to let themselves be honest for a few hours. “Is it weird that it feels worse when she tells me she loves me?” April will say, and let the silence fill the air.

Holster thinks of best friend sundaes, and long weekends together in the library, and the way every time he hears someone talking about Ransom it is in conjunction with himself. “Not weird at all,” he says, then he reaches for the joint, and their minds are buzzing with the words that don’t need to be said out loud.

Eventually they stop going on double dates.

When they started… it had been fun. A little painful, but not so much that they couldn’t shove down their feelings for a couple hours and open the dam again at night when no one else was around. But after several weeks in a row of fake smiles… April’s done. She’s never been the self-sacrificing type, no matter how much she loves March, and she’s not about to start now.

March doesn’t seem to see it the same way.

“April, look at me,” she’s saying. They’re standing in her dorm, several feet apart. April’s staring at the window, scared of what would be written on her face if she made eye contact.

“Did I do something?” March is saying, and April still isn’t looking up. The sound of her heart pounding is roaring in her ears. Dread is pooling slowly in her gut, enough to make her sweaty and nauseous.

“April,” March says, visibly frustrated. “Talk to me.”

April slowly tears her gaze away from the window. “Holster and I aren’t even dating, March.”

March throws her hands up in the air. “Then why did you even bother coming at all?”

Her words are cold, jagged in the corners, and April flinches a little. “I did it for you.” She hates the slight wobble in her voice. After months of hiding successfully, all of her composure is unraveling and any plausible deniability of her being in love with March is slipping away.

March laughs derisively, and April’s heart is stuttering, trying to leap out of her chest and run away to a safe place where she can’t cut herself open and leave her secrets bare.

“April! What does that even _mean?”_

Something in April snaps, and she all but screams, “Can’t you see? March, I'm in _love_ with you.”

Her eyes widen when she realizes what she just said. March freezes, slack-jawed. “What did you just say?” she whispers.

April closes her eyes. Fuck. “Forget it,” she says. “You’re with Ransom, I didn’t - I know I -”

A calloused hand come to rest on her jaw, warm and tender. She slowly opens her eyes.

March’s forehead comes to rest on hers, and she lets their noses bump together. Shakily, April lets her hand tangle in March’s hair. “April,” she’s smiling, laughing a little.

“March,” she responds, and then she is cut off as March kisses her back to life.

A few days later, all four of them can be found at Annie’s again, walking hand-in-hand with the _right_ people this time.

Both the hockey and volleyball teams are incredibly confused when they learn the news, because they had just assumed Ransom was dating Holster, and March was dating April this entire time.

"Well," Bitty says thoughtfully. "It makes sense." He's staring at them curiously, as if finally realizing why Holster had been so morose the past several weeks.

"Yeah, um," Nursey speaks up from the back. "we can fine you guys for this, right?"

Jack furrows his brows. "For what? They only just got-"

"I dunno, _something,_ probably. This feels like a fineable offense. Yo chill, don't look at me like..."

The sounds of the team's chirps fill a comfortable, familiar space, and Ransom smiles over at his boyfriend (his boyfriend!) _,_ who looks lovingly back at him. He can't help but think, _this is how it's supposed to be._

"Yeah, that one's definitely a fine. Someone get the Sin Bin."

Their smiles only widen.


	2. a continuation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> elizaeverafter on tumblr asked for the prompt "Did you ever even love me at all?" for holsom, and somehow this turned into a continuation of the previous chapter
> 
> (it's not a sequel, it mostly just focuses on holsom getting together, because the last chapter never really included that)
> 
> post can be found [here](https://biginnyweasley.tumblr.com/post/639261869697384448/hi-for-the-prompt-angst-1-holsom-thanks)  
> 

Holster sees Ransom walking hand-in-hand with March and thinks: _what_. 

“Brah, they’re dating,” Lardo says, looking up at him in concern. “Did you - did you not know that?”

Holster doesn’t even bother giving a smile that he knows she’ll see through, just shakes his head. She pats him on the shoulder and somehow, coming from Lardo, it feels like a hug.

“It’s only been a couple days,” she says, and he knows she’s trying to cheer him up, but his brain is trapped under a block of ice and all he can do is nod.

They walk back to the Haus in silence.

* * *

Ransom still sits next to him on roadies; still sleeps in the bed on top of his; their passes connect as they always do. When the four of them - Ransom, March, Holster and April - start to go on double dates, Ransom walks back to the Haus with Holster.

Holster sings show tunes so loudly he knows the Swallow will have his head, and Ransom hypes him up.

It’s still not quite the same. 

* * *

April shows up at the Haus again, once, and it’s different. He’s used to melancholy April, pining April. It was one of the reasons they became friends in the first place: the heartbroken romantics inside of them understood each other.

This time, though, April’s smiling, _beaming_ , and she jumps into his arms with a bone-crushing hug. “She loves me back,” she whispers into his ear, and he rocks her from side to side a bit. Part of him wants to be bitter, but she’s radiating with so much joy it demands to be spread.

“She loves you back!” he steps back, grinning toothily. “Bro!”

“Yeah.” 

“We’re not smoking this time,” he leads her into the kitchen, ignoring Shitty, who seems to be winking unsubtly from the couch. “You’re getting a celebratory leftover piece of pie.”

She looks sufficiently honored, so he heats it up and carries it onto the reading room, the only place they can hang out without getting harassed by various well-meaning teammates. 

It’s not as strange as he thought it would be, sitting in their Moping Spot, celebrating instead of comforting each other or lamenting. 

“So you’re going out then?” he says to break the silence.

She’s still smiling. “Yeah,” she says. The pie’s already gone. He has no idea how she ate it so fast, but it’s a Bitty pie, so he gets it. “I just - I just said it. I told her I loved her. And she kissed me.”

She looks over at him as if she can sense the way his heart is pounding, and she settles back against the rooftop. “Why’d you tell me this in person? It could’ve been a text,” he says, but he thinks he might know the answer. 

“March and Ransom aren’t together anymore,” she says. “Don’t make me spell it out for you, asshole.”

Holster’s still on the roof when she leaves, and he watches her walk out the door from above. “I’m serious!” she turns around and yells back up at him. “Go get your man!”

“Go back to your girlfriend!” he hollers back, and her face lights up at the reminder. He thinks: _maybe that could be me._

* * *

He finds Ransom in the attic, laying on his bunk. 

“Hey bro,” he says, to announce his presence. He lingers in the doorway. “Are you alright?”

Ransom doesn’t look up, just continues staring at the ceiling. “Did you hear?”

“About you and March?”

“Yeah.” 

Holster gingerly sits on his desk, toying with the Canadian flag Ransom put in the pencil holder. The silence expands between them, stretching like a living thing. Ransom speaks up again after a long moment, “I’m alright with it, so don’t worry. I just…”

He sits up, pinning Holster down with a strange look. “I think March and I were both just - trying to forget other people.”

Holster struggles to find his voice, and it’s like learning to skate for the first time, scrambling and sliding on ice that doesn’t want to hold you. He thinks his world might be crushing his lungs, thinks it has been, slowly, for a long time. 

In the end, he doesn’t have to say anything because Ransom beats him to it.

“Did you ever even love me at all?” His voice is quiet, hardly a whisper, but he’s staring straight at Holster with those piercing eyes of his. Holster thinks: _what_.

“Bro…” Holster’s wide-eyed, panicking at the sight of tears in Ransom’s eyes, because these aren’t coral-reef tears. He’s never seen him cry like this before. “What are you talking about?”

“March and I never loved each other,” he continues thickly. “because she was hung up on April, and - and,” his eyes dart away and he swallows. “Because I love you.”

Holster’s stuck to the chair, chest heaving quietly, mind racing and coming up empty. “You love me?” Ransom looks down at his hands, tears still rolling down his cheeks.

_He thinks, he thinks-_

“Ransom,” he says, and he’s laughing a little, because what the _fuck_ is happening. “I’ve loved you since our frog year.”

This time Ransom is the one with wide-eyes, visibly trying to catch up. “What?”

Holster’s full on crying now, laughter coming straight from his gut and bubbling out, overflowing, even. He reaches a hand up and cups Ransom’s cheek, sticking his hand between the bunk bed’s bars. “I think we have a lot of talking to do.”

Another tear slips onto Ransom’s cheek, but this time, he’s beaming.

Holster thinks: _finally_.

**Author's Note:**

> i’m on [tumblr](https://biginnyweasley.tumblr.com/), also shout out to my friend, [samantha](https://pecanplease.tumblr.com/) because a lot of this was based on conversations with her 💜


End file.
